(Spirit Lake)– Dickinson County Weed Commissioner Tanner Bouchard presented his annual report at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. He says the number of complaints he received this year regarding noxious weeds was down…
“Per mile we are spraying less each year. It’s a small number but when you consider how much thistles are in our roadsides that small number is really a very large comparison to the number that’s going down. So the weeds in our county are going down, especially in the roadside. And so is our herbicide usage which means we’re spending less to control those weeds.”
Bouchard says a lack of staff resulted in a decline in tree and brush removal this year…
“You have to have two people to run chainsaws and it was a one-person office for a little while. And then we did not do any brush spraying due to lack of staff.”
Bouchard, who also serves as Coordinator of the county’s Roadside Vegetation Management program, says the vast majority of weed complaints he dealt with pertained to canadian thistles.
